It’s summer and the children are off school. What will you suggest when they tell you they’re bored?
Here are some ideas from Yorkshire Housing customer Keeley Branch. Keeley lives in Malton and has 5 children; Baron, 13, Raven, 7, stepdaughter Lily, 7, Salem 4 and Aradia, 6 months.
Sponge targets
- Draw a clown face on a fence or brick wall with chalk.
- Then children can throw offcuts of sponge at it.
Keeley said,
“This is good for children of all ages as you can make the target bigger for young children or make older children stand further back.”
Tray Game
- Put ten different objects from around the home onto a tray.
- Give children a few minutes to memorise what is on the tray.
- Take the tray away and remove one or two items.
- Bring it back and the children have to guess what has been removed.
Keeley said,
“This is a great memory test and is fun to do.”
Salem’s Seaside
Keeley said,
“My son Salem came up with this during the Easter holidays as it was raining outside but he wished that he was at the seaside.”
- Lay out a cream or white coloured blanket on the floor, this will be the sand.
- Then lay out some blue towels at the edge for the sea.
- Get a bucket and spade and a fishing net out and get pretending you’re at the seaside!
- You can make ‘shells’ and ‘rocks’ out of scrunched up bits of paper, let your imagination run wild!
“We all joined in, putting on sunglasses and pretending to sunbathe and pretending to splash around in the sea. It kept everyone entertained for the afternoon.”
Odd one out
Mix up lots of household objects like socks, shoes, cups and cutlery then get children to sort them out and match them up.
We think this is a great idea for pairing up socks after you’ve done the laundry!
If you have any good ideas for cheap ways to keep children entertained then we’d love to share them. Send in your ideas to Laura using the form below.